A one word prompt sent to a community of writers. Five minutes to write about it. Unedited. Don’t think too hard…just write. The Five Minute Friday word prompt this week is WORK. Ready, set, go!
I have a favorite Bible. It’s filled with sermon notes jotted in the extra-wide margins, prayers I’ve written out, and insights I have gleaned in my studies. It’s held together in a few places by tape.
Funny thing about this Bible, though, is that it seems to be shrinking. I can’t quite make out the words anymore. Tongue in cheek, as you might have guessed; it is my eyesight that has changed.
Thankfully, I have two large-print Bibles. The first is a brand new ESV version that my friend Tom recently passed along to me because he didn’t quite care for its tab feature. I can tell that this Bible will soon become my everyday study Bible. The other is The Message, self-described within the flyleaf as “a contemporary rendering of the Bible from the original languages, crafted to present its tone, rhythm, events, and ideas in everyday language.” I keep this second Bible on my nightstand. It’s the Bible I reach for first thing in the morning.
I love how Eugene Peterson, the translator of The Message, writes in such a way as to help me see a familiar passage through a fresh pair of eyes, so to speak. The Holy Spirit used this rendering of Romans 12:1-2 to prepare my heart before heading off to work today. Here’s what I read:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God bring the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)
Barefoot Lily Lady 
A good example of living with a focus on God–reaching for the Bible in the morning. Blessings!
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I do like that verse in The Message, because it reminds us that everything we do needs to bring glory to God, even the mundane. Visiting from FMF#15
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I love how the Message puts Romans 12:1. It’s a great reminder of how our everyday life can be an act of worship.
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I do find my Bible shrinking,
it once seemed dauntingly thick,
but now some things have got me thinking
that what has performed that trick
is not some robed magician’s wand,
but more, familiarity
with words from the Great Beyond
getting, now, some clarity
from their reading and re-reading,
from pages fast-flipped to and fro;
something that my soul was needing
from the mists of long ago,
and now, beneath the blade of cancer,
in God’s word comes His quick answer.
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Thank you, brother Andrew. I always consider it an honor when you visit and leave one of your poetic responses to whatever I wrote. Your pen has reminded me of the best reason for a “shrinking Bible”–constant use. Oh, that our daily study would make us become so familiar with its pages that we could easily flip to the passage God brings to our heart–either to bring its message to a friend in need, or our own heart’s present burden. Thank you for blessing me with your insightful prose. Your sister, Cindie.
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Thank you for that, Cindie. I hardly recognised Romans 12 like that! Excellent! It really does bring the words alive to have a variety of translations. I have the same problem with my well-worn and much loved Bible – it is stuffed with memos, underlines, dates and notes, as well as a few pressed flowers and autumn leaves, but now I need glasses AND a magnifying glass to read it!! I think my eyes are as well-worn as the Bible. Blessings, Dawn #27
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I have a magnifying glass at the ready right next to my comfy chair too. Ha! Have a blessed and beautiful day, Dawn.
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❤
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